Legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully once said (with a straight face) that, in every game he ever watched and/or announced, he saw something that he hadn't seen before. Like a lot of people, I played baseball when I was younger. I played in high school and college and in Mexico. While I enjoyed competing as a pitcher and a batter, a whole lot of stuff that I experienced was redundant. Ground ball to third, throw him out at first. But, who can question Vin Scully?

I've been running the League for 37 years and I've never missed a Sunday. (I guess that's somewhat remarkable.) A lot of the stuff I've seen runs together in my head, but every now and then... We once had a championship game where a team was down one with five seconds left. A guy named Lalo Ramos (who still plays on Just a Game) does a sweet spin move in the lane and shoots a soft shot. As the seconds tick down, the ball bounces around and, as the buzzer sounds, comes to a rest on the heel of the rim, next to the backboard. Jump ball, game over, championship lost. 

So, this season, Frosty Hesson made it to the championship game in their Division. In their first eight games (regular-season and one playoff game), they averaged 57 points a game. That's about average for the entire League. But they get in the championship game with East Side High and everything goes nuts. Frosty is without two of their better players, who skipped the Championship game for a dubious reason. East Side jumps out to a monstrous lead and the blowout is on...except it isn't. Frosty starts making some shots and things tightened up a bit.

It's still a double-digit lead at halftime, but Frosty starts the second half on fire. They hit several threes and they storm back to take a 10-point lead with about eight minutes left. Then, it's East Side's turn. They go on a run and grab the lead back. Then, a whole bunch of stuff happened for both teams and East Side High ended up winning the game, 86-85. Frosty Hesson, playing without two of their leading scorers, exceeded their season scoring average by nearly 30 points and lost. 

That's definitely something I hadn't seen before.

We had several other great Division Championship games. On Rob's Court, nine of the 11 games ended with single-digit margins, including the Black Mambas' 51-50 win over Icy Hots. The Icy Hots had won a one-point game in the semis to reach the title game.

In other games:

--Basketball Junkies won another A League title, holding off a furious rally by Splash Pad.

--Chaz Mack led Average Joes to another title, leading his team past the Cardinals, 61-53.

--Just a Game beat Nova, 62-57. So, the aforementioned Lalo got a (championship) shirt.

--[Enter Team Name Here] got past Seasoned Veterans, 46-41.

--Zona outlasted Soul Snatchers, 63-58.

In that last game, we had a situation. I know that the playoffs are a difficult time. People go a little crazy over the prospect of having a shirt with my picture on it. But this was ridiculous. We had teams squaring off and people coming out of the stands, yelling. It didn't reach a stage where it would get really ugly, but everybody involved (including one of my refs) should be embarrassed. I was actually sitting out in the lobby writing an article on my age-old laptop (that's how I earn my living) when I heard the commotion. We had to calm everybody down and then I had to sit at the scorer's table for the rest of the game.

It actually turned out to be a really good game and I'm glad I watched it. One thing comes out of that game. I am thinking of asking the venue to see to it that we don't have bleachers alongside the court any more. That's a shame because the vast majority of people just want to watch the game, but we can't have incidents like that. We just can't.

It was another great season. We're taking a couple Sundays off for the Holidays and we'll be back on January 5th. I hope everybody has a Merry Christmas and a great New Year. And if you celebrate Festivus, that, too.